Psychiatric medications, science, marketing, psychiatry in general, and occasionally clinical psychology. Questioning the role of key opinion leaders and the use of "science" to promote commercial ends rather than the needs of people with mental health concerns.

Friday, February 23, 2007

That's not what one set of physicians believe, despite Lilly's protestations to the contrary. Here's what they recently reported regarding one case:

The authors report a case with life-threatening hyperglycemiaand acidosis in a patient with no previous diabetic historyfollowing treatment with olanzapine. A 35-year-old woman witha history of bipolar affective disorder treated with olanzapinepresented with severe diabetic ketoacidosis. She had no priorhistory of diabetes or risk factors for diabetes. Glycosylatedhemoglobin (HbA1c) on admission blood sample suggested thatlong-term glycemic control had been poor. The authors postulatethat treatment with olanzapine precipitated hyperglycemia, anelevated creatine kinase level, and a high amylase level.

Perhaps someone should have told these physicians that Zyprexa is a safe, gentle psychotropic that could not possibly induce such nasty side effects.

2 comments:

Anonymous
said...

Not only diabetes, but apparently on her way to kidney failure as well with a high creatine level. A woman in Alaska won a few million for lithium taken as prescribed causing kidney failure, too bad this woman probably isn't reading your blog.

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I'm an academic with a respectable amount of clinical experience and no drug industry funding. Given my lack of time, don't expect multiple daily updates. Certain things about clinical psychology, the drug industry, psychiatry, and academics drive me nuts, and you'll probably pick up on these pet peeves before long...